


Heroes of Old

by coraxes



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cultural Differences, M/M, Past Costis/Aris and Implied One-Sided Costis/Gen, Past Kamet/OMC, Pre-Relationship, Thick as Thieves Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 16:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10925766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Costis asks Kamet about Immakuk and Ennikar's friendship.  A missing scene fromThick as Thieves.





	Heroes of Old

**Author's Note:**

> I think this might be the first Comet fic??? hell yea dudes
> 
> Anyway this is more pre-ship than anything, since I attempted to fit it within the TAT narrative. I hope it works. I literally read the book from 12-3 this morning and then started writing this fic around 8 this evening.
> 
> The views expressed here are vaguely based on ancient Mesopotamia/ancient Greece. Emphasis on vaguely.

“Immakuk and Ennikar,” the Attolian said.  I opened my eyes, startled to be spoken to this late.  Usually, he left me alone.  But I had been tossing and turning for some hours, and so had he.  After weeks of running, the relative inactivity on the Attolian ship had made it difficult for us to sleep.  He was staring at the ceiling.  “Were they only friends?”

I blinked, not making sense of the question.  _Only_?  Their friendship is literally the stuff of legends; there is no _only_ about it.  I told him so.

“I--”  The Attolian grimaced up at the ceiling.  I suspected if there were more light, I would have been able to see him blushing.  “That’s not what I meant.  You know, that first story, it says something like their love was so great…”

“’Great was their love and greatly did it sustain them,’” I quoted.  I was surprised he remembered that line, after so long.  Then I realized what he was getting at.  “You mean, were they lovers?”

Now I was sure he was blushing.  The Attolian nodded, still staring at the ceiling.

I had wondered that myself, going over the tablets.  “I don’t know,” I said finally.  “A few tales say they were.  Some scholars will argue that those tales were added later or are otherwise unreliable.”

The Attolian nodded.  He half turned, finally looking at me instead of the wooden boards that surrounded us, and his face pillowed on his arm and sandy hair in a disarray.  “Some scholars?  What about you?”

The vain part of me was pleased that he had asked, even if I didn’t know why he was suddenly taking an interest in the relationships of ancient heroes.  “I think they were, in the original stories.  Perhaps it was more amusing to have Ennikar get into trouble with some maid, or perhaps it was just an agreement they had for a time.”  Now I was the one staring at the ceiling, and I admitted, enjoying the use of my freeman’s tongue, “I like to think so.”

“Oh?”  I could hear bedcovers move as the Attolian shifted.  “I’ve heard it’s…common, among Mede men.”

Yes, there had been some comments to that effect when I was in Attolia before.  The heathens here seemed to view our practices as shameful.  “Between those of equal rank, it’s not…unusual,” I said.  “Most don’t last, of course, but a few do.  Wives usually understand.  Some have companions of their own.”

The Attolian made a surprised noise.  “Other women?”

I nodded.  Attolia, I had learned, and indeed most of the little peninsula, had strict guidelines on what was shameful between men and what was not.  Two men like Immakuk and Ennikar, equals, being lovers, would be frowned upon in Attolia; I wondered if the Attolian thought it was shameful.  But when I looked at him, he seemed thoughtful, not disapproving. 

“I had a friend,” I blurted out, “named Meresh.”

The Attolian moved again, propping his chin on his hand while he looked at me.

“He wasn’t my master’s favorite.  He oversaw the kitchens, and I helped Jeffa.  But then my master placed me in charge of all the slaves in his house, and I had to end it.”  There was no use having a lover I might need to give orders to.  Besides, others might have seen my bed as a way to less work.

I could see the surprise on his face, quickly smothered.  Of course, Attolians only considered such things acceptable when there _was_ a difference in rank.  “My friend Aris,” he said after a moment.  I recognized the name, though it took me a moment to remember from where.  It was the alias he had given in our travels with the trading caravan.  “It was…never anything serious.  He was curious, and missed being with women.  Soldiers aren’t supposed to, but it happens.”

The Attolian didn’t say anything about why _he_ had done it, I noticed, and that was perhaps explanation enough.

It was getting to be too late, and I was tired, and that was why I asked, “What about your king?” before I could reconsider.  The Attolian had punched his king in the face, but he was also, somehow, a favorite.  Nothing about what I had heard of their relationship made sense.

The Attolian made a derisive sound, and then was quiet for a long time.  “The only person who feels more love than my king for his queen,” he said, “is my queen for her king.” 

 That made even _less_ sense, on the monarchs’ parts.  I did not see how the barbaric queen could love the weak king I had heard tales of.  But the Attolian had confessed something, something I would have been a fool not to recognize, and out of respect for that I did not press farther.

 

* * *

 

Kamet stared down at his own neat, small handwriting.  The scene covered only a few sheets of paper.

Of course some parts of his account--his meeting with Laela, his thoughts of the other slaves in Nahuseresh’s household, his wounding by the Namreen--had been uncomfortable to put into words.    But this was the first part of the account that made him think, before he had finished the last sentence, that no one else should see it.  His scholar’s dedication to thoroughness and accuracy warred with his desire to keep private things private.

Kamet considered what the king would think if he read this scene, as he undoubtedly would read the account.  What the queen would think. 

He thought of the way he had begun to notice Costis’s eyes lingering on him more often, the way he could glance up to the soldier and see him start to blush and turn away.  The (much smaller; Kamet knew how to be discreet) number of times Costis had caught him doing the same.  Kamet remembered earlier in the way, when Costis had seen him carrying a large box of scrolls and tried to steady him with a hand on his lower back.

Deciding, Kamet carefully took the papers and folded them.  There were some things, he thought, that not even the secretary of the archives needed to know.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!!


End file.
